Authors(s) and Affiliation(s)

Abstract

In this study, the AA. describe landscape-scale patterns of the upper boundaries of forest in 5 valleys in the inner and peripheral regions of the Alps. The aim is to describe present treeline altitudes according to climatic, geomorphologic and anthropogenic factors in order to select sites appropriate to the study of climatic treeline dynamics. Moreover, the AA. want to check whether or not human disturbance has a different impact on treeline altitude in the study sites